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[Sedentary behaviour and life expectancy in the USA: a cause-deleted life table analysis doi 10.1136/bmjopen-2012-000828]

Restricting the amount of time spent seated every day to less than 3 hours might boost the life expectancy of US adults by an extra 2 years, indicates an analysis of published research in the online journal BMJ Open.

And cutting down TV viewing to less than 2 hours every day might extend life by almost 1.4 years, the findings suggest.

MADISON- A study of university students is the first evidence to refute the supposed link between depression and the amount of time spent on Facebook and other social-media sites.

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health study suggests that it may be unnecessarily alarming to advise patients and parents on the risk of "Facebook Depression" based solely on the amount of Internet use. The results are published online today in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPfAR) began in 2003 with good intentions, but it was not until the U.S. government's massive overseas public health campaign adopted generic drugs that it became a success, according to a new article by Brown University researchers in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs. Nearly a decade later, expanding the availability of generics remains urgent, especially as doctors in the field encounter resistance to first-line treatment regimens.

While HIV programs provide lifesaving care and treatment to millions of people in lower-income countries, there have been concerns that as these programs expand, they divert investments from other health priorities such as maternal health. Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health assessed the effect of HIV programs supported by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) on access to maternal health care in sub-Saharan Africa for women who are not infected with HIV.

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 3 P.M. (CT), MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012

CHICAGO – Use of cranberry-containing products appears to be associated with prevention of urinary tract infections in some individuals, according to a study that reviewed the available medical literature and was published by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

CHICAGO – Better quality of life at the end of life for patients with advanced cancer was associated with avoiding hospitalizations and the intensive care unit, worrying less, praying or meditating, being visited by a pastor in a hospital or clinic, and having a therapeutic alliance with their physician, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, working with Danish researchers, have developed a novel anticancer drug designed to travel -- undetected by normal cells -- through the bloodstream until activated by specific cancer proteins. The drug, made from a weedlike plant, has been shown to destroy cancers and their direct blood supplies, acting like a "molecular grenade," and sparing healthy blood vessels and tissues.

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (July 9, 2012, 3 PM EST) Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering have discovered a way to maintain the potency of vaccines and other drugs -- that otherwise require refrigeration -- for months and possibly years at temperatures above 110 degrees F, by stabilizing them in a silk protein made from silkworm cocoons. Importantly, the pharmaceutical-infused silk can be made in a variety of forms such as microneedles, microvesicles and films that allow the non-refrigerated drugs to be stored and administered in a single device.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (July 9, 2012) — A hormone with anti-diabetic properties also reduces depression-like symptoms in mice, researchers from the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio reported today.

SAN ANTONIO (July 9, 2012) – Protein interactions outside breast cancer cells can send signals to the cancer cells to permanently stop proliferating, a new study showed in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new silk-based stabilizer that, in the laboratory, kept some vaccines and antibiotics stable up to temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This provides a new avenue toward eliminating the need to keep some vaccines and antibiotics refrigerated, which could save billions of dollars every year and increase accessibility to third world populations.

Researchers have discovered yet another way to harvest small amounts of electricity from motion in the world around us – this time by capturing the electrical charge produced when two different kinds of plastic materials rub against one another. Based on flexible polymer materials, this "triboelectric" generator could provide alternating current (AC) from activities such as walking.

In 1928, chemists Otto Diels and Kurt Alder first documented diene synthesis, a chemical reaction important for synthesizing many polymers, alkaloids and steroids. Their work on this mechanism, which came to be known as the Diels–Alder reaction, won them the 1950 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Since then, the iconic reaction has become the most commonly used and studied mechanism in organic chemistry. But what happens during the reaction has never been entirely clear.

New research from Norris Cotton Cancer Center estimates, for the first time, the impact of an R rating for movie smoking. James Sargent, MD, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at Norris Cotton Cancer Center, emphasizes that an R rating for any film showing smoking could substantially reduce smoking onset in U.S. adolescents -- an effect size similar to making all parents maximally authoritative in their parenting, Sargent says.

Skin squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is a subtype of very aggressive skin cancers that usually develops in sunexposed body regions, but can also affect a large number of organs such as the bladder, esophagus, lungs etc. However, little is known about the biology of these cells, which consequently makes difficult the generation of new specific therapies; actually, the standard treatments are based on surgery and subsequent radiotherapy.